Friday, November 5, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
EXERPTS FROM LITERATURE
82. 'Israeli Exeptionalism' by M. Shalid Alam; Professor of Economics at Northeastern University in Boston.
page 9 ......Over time, this growing emphasis on the "radical uniqueness" of Israel would give rise to racist tendencies. Since the Jews were the chosen instrument of God's intervention on earth, some Jewish thinkers took this to mean that Jews were no subject to the laws of nature and society. In other words, as long as the Jews believed that they were acting as instruments of God's will, they did not have to place themselves under the laws of Gentile nations.
page 26.....In general, the Zionists wanted to believe that the Palestinians were not a people; they had no attachment to their land, no national identity, no national aspirations. If they are not a people, then we can take away their land from them. The irony is palpable. The Jews - who were not yet a people, because they had no land they could call their own - asserted that the Palestinians, who had their own land, were not a people. This not so clever deception had only one end: so that people without a land could steal it from another people who had it.
page 34.....The tragedy of Israel is not fortuitous. Driven by history, chance, and cunning, the Zionists wedged themselves between two historical adversaries, the West and Islam, and by harnassing the strength of the first against the second, they have produced a conflict that can only grow deeper over time. In this conflict. Israel's triumphs are temporary, are indeed illusionary, since they evoke deeper, wider response from the societies that suffer the devastation of its triumphs. In the long run, in the time scale of history, by relentlessly pressing its advantages, Israel only ensures that its adversaries will slowly build the defences that will eventually rise to match Israel's military might and its expansionist ambitions.
page 36 .....In addition, the humiliation of the Islamicate has also given rise to radical factions- their numbers still minuscule - who have decided to use violence to achieve their political ends. This destabilizing dialectic has now brought the West itself into direct confrontation against the Islamicate. We are now staring into the precipice. Yet, there is little appreciation in the West of the scale of this impending disaster: or the will to pull back from it.
page 39....... David Ben Gurion, 1956 (quote) "Why should the Arabs make peace ? If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country"
page 51....."History does not support the presence of an irrisistible Jewish yearning for Palestine. "Why, during these thousands years have not the Jews really tried to return to this country ? Why was it necessary to wait until the end of the Nineteenth Century for Herzle to succeed in convincing them of this necessity ?
page 61 Moshe Dayan, April 1956 (quote): "We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and the gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or a house".
page 71.... David Ben-Gurion, 1938 (quote) "I support compulsory transfer. I do not see in it anything immoral"
..................Benny Morris, 2004 (quote) "Without uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish state would not have arisen here".
page 83.....The changes in the spatial distribution of the world's Jewish population between 1800 and 1930 were equally important in preparing the grounds for Zionist success.In 1700, only about 16 percent of the world's Jews lived in Western and Central Europe and its overseas extensions, regions that would become centers of global capitalism over the next two centuries. At this time, 49 percent of the world's Jewish population lived in Eastern Europe and 35.5 percent in the Islamicate. This demographic weakness was remedied substantially by the middle decades of the twentieth century, due primarily to the growing migration of Jews to destinations westward.. In 1939, Europe's share of the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa had increased substantially. Most importantly, British Jewish population had increased from an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 in the early 1800s to 300,000 by 1914, due mostly to immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe since the early 1800s. The growth of Jewish population in the United States was more dramatic, having increased from 2,500 in 1800 to one million in 1900 and 3,6 million in 1920".
page 85......The long centuries of Jewish exposure to finance, commerce, estate management, and the crafts had equiped them better than most Gentiles to succeeed as international traders, bankers, speculators, industrialists, and stockbrokers in Europe's emerging capitalist economies.
..............Already, in the early nineteenth century, Jewish families owned thirty of the fifty-two private banks in Berlin; in Vienna, by the end of the nineteenth century, "40 percent of the directors of public banks were Jews or of Jewish descent, and all banks but one was administered by Jews."
........"in an age when the press was the only mass medium, cultural or otherwise, the liberal press [in Europe] was largely a Jewish press"
page 88.....In addition to the internal migration of Jews in Europe - from small towns and rural centres to the cities, and from Eastern Europe to destinations in Central and Western Europe - there occurred a migration of similar magnitude from all over Europe, to the new world and especially the United States. The cross-Atlantic migration of Jews was pregnant with consequences for the Zionist movement. Because of these migrations, by the third decade of the twentieth century, the United States became home to the world's largest concentration of Jews.
page 91......Once Zionism began to draw substantial support from Jewish communities in the West, and from important centres of Jewish power - in finance, industry, politics, media and academia - we can expect that these Jewish communities would increasingly use their influence to mobilize the support of Western governments.
page 123....In the 1930's, the Nazis banned all Jewish organizations, except those with Zionist aims; they even allowed the Zionists to fly their blue-and-white flag with the Star of David at its centre. In violation of the Jewish boycott of the Nazi economy, the Zionists promissed cash and made concessions to Nazi Germany if they directed Jewish emigrants to Palestine......Brenner has documented several episodes of collaboration between Zionist mainstream Jewish organizations and fascist governments in Germany, Italy and Japan.
page 139.......Zionism was a grave assault on the history of the global resistance to imperialism that unfolded even as the Jewish colons in Palestine laid the foundations of their colonial settler state. The Zionists sought to abolish the ground realities in the Middle East established by Islam over the previous thirteen hundred years. They sought to overrun the demography of Palestine, to insert a European presence in the heart of the Islamicate, and to serve as the forward base for the Western powers intent on dominating the Middle East. The Zionist could succeed only by combining the forces of the Christian and Jewish West in an assault that would almost certainly be seen as the, latter-day Crusade to marginalize the Islamicate peoples in the Middle East. It was delusional to assume that the Zionist challenge to the Islamicate would go unanswered.
page 154........When all the advences of the Zionist movement are brought together - the dramatic growth in the cadre of activists, the mass mobilization of Jews, and the support of the American Jewish establishment, we begin to acquire a better estimate of the political influence that the Zionist movement could now exercise over the U.S. political system. The Zionists had now become a force in the elections to the Congress and the president, and they had built up a network for lobbying congressmen, senators, and the White House.
page 168.....Far from making concessions to Palestinians and Arabs to advance peace, Israel had an opposite interest in escalating its conflicts with the Arabs. American support for Israel could only increase as Israel succeeded in escalating its conflicts with its adversaries. Israel was free to deny the Palestinians the right of return, attack the Palestinians in the refugee camps in Gaza and Jordan, accelerate the influx of Jewish colonists into Israel, augment its military superiority over the Arabs, and engage in frequent attacks against Arab targets. Anything that provoked Arab belligerence would bring rich payment offs in higher levels of American support. (emphasize added)
page 193.....The value of annual economic and military assistance to Israel increased dramatically in 1970 and 1974, never dipped below $ 3 billion between 1985 and 2000, and has declined only trivially since then. Moreover, Israel has received this aid on terms that are not available to other recipients. For many years now, the Congress has approved aid commitments to Israel automatically, without any discussion or dissent. Israel has received all its aids in the form of grants since 1985, spends most of it on weapon systems, receives all of the assistance at the beginning of each year, bypasses the Department of Defence in making military purchases..............
page 200.....The equation of the Jewish lobby with a narrowly defined "pressure group" is misleading. We have argued - a position that is well supported by the evidence - that Jewish protagonists of Zionism have worked through many different channels to influence public opinion, the composition of political classes, and political decisions. They work through the institutions and media that shape public opinion to determine what Americans know about Israel, how they think about Israel, and what they can say about Israel. (emphasize added)
Once we recognize the scale of the financial resources the Israel lobby commands, the array of political forces it can mobilize, and the tools it commands to direct public opinion on the Middle East, we would shrink from calling it a lobby.
page 9 ......Over time, this growing emphasis on the "radical uniqueness" of Israel would give rise to racist tendencies. Since the Jews were the chosen instrument of God's intervention on earth, some Jewish thinkers took this to mean that Jews were no subject to the laws of nature and society. In other words, as long as the Jews believed that they were acting as instruments of God's will, they did not have to place themselves under the laws of Gentile nations.
page 26.....In general, the Zionists wanted to believe that the Palestinians were not a people; they had no attachment to their land, no national identity, no national aspirations. If they are not a people, then we can take away their land from them. The irony is palpable. The Jews - who were not yet a people, because they had no land they could call their own - asserted that the Palestinians, who had their own land, were not a people. This not so clever deception had only one end: so that people without a land could steal it from another people who had it.
page 34.....The tragedy of Israel is not fortuitous. Driven by history, chance, and cunning, the Zionists wedged themselves between two historical adversaries, the West and Islam, and by harnassing the strength of the first against the second, they have produced a conflict that can only grow deeper over time. In this conflict. Israel's triumphs are temporary, are indeed illusionary, since they evoke deeper, wider response from the societies that suffer the devastation of its triumphs. In the long run, in the time scale of history, by relentlessly pressing its advantages, Israel only ensures that its adversaries will slowly build the defences that will eventually rise to match Israel's military might and its expansionist ambitions.
page 36 .....In addition, the humiliation of the Islamicate has also given rise to radical factions- their numbers still minuscule - who have decided to use violence to achieve their political ends. This destabilizing dialectic has now brought the West itself into direct confrontation against the Islamicate. We are now staring into the precipice. Yet, there is little appreciation in the West of the scale of this impending disaster: or the will to pull back from it.
page 39....... David Ben Gurion, 1956 (quote) "Why should the Arabs make peace ? If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country"
page 51....."History does not support the presence of an irrisistible Jewish yearning for Palestine. "Why, during these thousands years have not the Jews really tried to return to this country ? Why was it necessary to wait until the end of the Nineteenth Century for Herzle to succeed in convincing them of this necessity ?
page 61 Moshe Dayan, April 1956 (quote): "We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and the gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or a house".
page 71.... David Ben-Gurion, 1938 (quote) "I support compulsory transfer. I do not see in it anything immoral"
..................Benny Morris, 2004 (quote) "Without uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish state would not have arisen here".
page 83.....The changes in the spatial distribution of the world's Jewish population between 1800 and 1930 were equally important in preparing the grounds for Zionist success.In 1700, only about 16 percent of the world's Jews lived in Western and Central Europe and its overseas extensions, regions that would become centers of global capitalism over the next two centuries. At this time, 49 percent of the world's Jewish population lived in Eastern Europe and 35.5 percent in the Islamicate. This demographic weakness was remedied substantially by the middle decades of the twentieth century, due primarily to the growing migration of Jews to destinations westward.. In 1939, Europe's share of the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa had increased substantially. Most importantly, British Jewish population had increased from an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 in the early 1800s to 300,000 by 1914, due mostly to immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe since the early 1800s. The growth of Jewish population in the United States was more dramatic, having increased from 2,500 in 1800 to one million in 1900 and 3,6 million in 1920".
page 85......The long centuries of Jewish exposure to finance, commerce, estate management, and the crafts had equiped them better than most Gentiles to succeeed as international traders, bankers, speculators, industrialists, and stockbrokers in Europe's emerging capitalist economies.
..............Already, in the early nineteenth century, Jewish families owned thirty of the fifty-two private banks in Berlin; in Vienna, by the end of the nineteenth century, "40 percent of the directors of public banks were Jews or of Jewish descent, and all banks but one was administered by Jews."
........"in an age when the press was the only mass medium, cultural or otherwise, the liberal press [in Europe] was largely a Jewish press"
page 88.....In addition to the internal migration of Jews in Europe - from small towns and rural centres to the cities, and from Eastern Europe to destinations in Central and Western Europe - there occurred a migration of similar magnitude from all over Europe, to the new world and especially the United States. The cross-Atlantic migration of Jews was pregnant with consequences for the Zionist movement. Because of these migrations, by the third decade of the twentieth century, the United States became home to the world's largest concentration of Jews.
page 91......Once Zionism began to draw substantial support from Jewish communities in the West, and from important centres of Jewish power - in finance, industry, politics, media and academia - we can expect that these Jewish communities would increasingly use their influence to mobilize the support of Western governments.
page 123....In the 1930's, the Nazis banned all Jewish organizations, except those with Zionist aims; they even allowed the Zionists to fly their blue-and-white flag with the Star of David at its centre. In violation of the Jewish boycott of the Nazi economy, the Zionists promissed cash and made concessions to Nazi Germany if they directed Jewish emigrants to Palestine......Brenner has documented several episodes of collaboration between Zionist mainstream Jewish organizations and fascist governments in Germany, Italy and Japan.
page 139.......Zionism was a grave assault on the history of the global resistance to imperialism that unfolded even as the Jewish colons in Palestine laid the foundations of their colonial settler state. The Zionists sought to abolish the ground realities in the Middle East established by Islam over the previous thirteen hundred years. They sought to overrun the demography of Palestine, to insert a European presence in the heart of the Islamicate, and to serve as the forward base for the Western powers intent on dominating the Middle East. The Zionist could succeed only by combining the forces of the Christian and Jewish West in an assault that would almost certainly be seen as the, latter-day Crusade to marginalize the Islamicate peoples in the Middle East. It was delusional to assume that the Zionist challenge to the Islamicate would go unanswered.
page 154........When all the advences of the Zionist movement are brought together - the dramatic growth in the cadre of activists, the mass mobilization of Jews, and the support of the American Jewish establishment, we begin to acquire a better estimate of the political influence that the Zionist movement could now exercise over the U.S. political system. The Zionists had now become a force in the elections to the Congress and the president, and they had built up a network for lobbying congressmen, senators, and the White House.
page 168.....Far from making concessions to Palestinians and Arabs to advance peace, Israel had an opposite interest in escalating its conflicts with the Arabs. American support for Israel could only increase as Israel succeeded in escalating its conflicts with its adversaries. Israel was free to deny the Palestinians the right of return, attack the Palestinians in the refugee camps in Gaza and Jordan, accelerate the influx of Jewish colonists into Israel, augment its military superiority over the Arabs, and engage in frequent attacks against Arab targets. Anything that provoked Arab belligerence would bring rich payment offs in higher levels of American support. (emphasize added)
page 193.....The value of annual economic and military assistance to Israel increased dramatically in 1970 and 1974, never dipped below $ 3 billion between 1985 and 2000, and has declined only trivially since then. Moreover, Israel has received this aid on terms that are not available to other recipients. For many years now, the Congress has approved aid commitments to Israel automatically, without any discussion or dissent. Israel has received all its aids in the form of grants since 1985, spends most of it on weapon systems, receives all of the assistance at the beginning of each year, bypasses the Department of Defence in making military purchases..............
page 200.....The equation of the Jewish lobby with a narrowly defined "pressure group" is misleading. We have argued - a position that is well supported by the evidence - that Jewish protagonists of Zionism have worked through many different channels to influence public opinion, the composition of political classes, and political decisions. They work through the institutions and media that shape public opinion to determine what Americans know about Israel, how they think about Israel, and what they can say about Israel. (emphasize added)
Once we recognize the scale of the financial resources the Israel lobby commands, the array of political forces it can mobilize, and the tools it commands to direct public opinion on the Middle East, we would shrink from calling it a lobby.
Friday, October 1, 2010
EDITING OR CENSORING ?
81. "Zionist propaganda is active, well organised and widespread at any rate in the democracies of the West, is largely amenable to it, it commands many of the channels for the dissemination of news, and more particular those in the English speaking world"
George Antonius (historian)
"Many of you are uninformed about the conflict in the Middle East not because you don't want to know, but because you have been misinformed by the "Israeli-occupied" media......Just how many would die and how much global environment would be polluted and destroyed by the fallout in the event of an apocalyptic endgame in and over Palestine are matters for speculation. But that it could happen is reason enough for every man, women and child on planet earth to be aware that they have a stake in what is happening in the Middle East."
Alan Hart (Former ITN and BBC 'Panorama' correspondent author of 'Zionism The real Enemy of the Jews; Vol. One: The false Messiah."
Question: Could the editing of letters on certain politically sensitive subjects such as the Middle East conflict be a form of disguised censorship ? Here is my story, so judge for yourself.
Those readers who have followed my blog from the beginning know that the blog was 'born' as a result of a controversy that developed over time with one of our national, also our local news paper The Christchurch Press, for short 'The Press'. Over the years I have been a prolific contributor, not only to The Press, but already during the sixties and seventies while still living in the Dunedin area. I wrote numerous letters on the Vietnam War to the Otago Daily Times (ODT). I never had any problems getting my very often lengthy letters (in small print) published (with references) and I am still grateful to the editors making the necessary corrections in spelling and style. Sometimes they were edited or abridged a little, but never were references to sources of information removed, which is as one can see from Post 60 my concern with the editing rules of The Press. After an absence from New Zealand for several years when we lived in The Netherlands and in the Irish Republic, I returned to this country as a retiree and settled in Christchurch. After the outbreak of the Iraq war in 2003 I took up the pen again and resumed writing letters to the editor, this time to the The Press.. Again from 2003 to 2009 I had numerous letters published, on an average one a month, with little or no problems. In January 2009 I was even awarded for the 'best letter of the week'. Sure, some letters were rejected and somewhat edited, as happened with other the letters of other contributors as well. I never had any problem with that whatever. I think I am a reasonable and tolerant person and fully appreciate the problems an editor has to cope with when making his selections from the deluge of letters submitted.
But apparently times had changed. Problems were beginning to surface after I had filed a complaint with the NZ Press Council (adjudication 2094 November 2009. Complaint not upheld) and letters dealing with the Israeli/ Palestine conflict specifically. Very often essential passages and references to sources of information were carefully excised from letters. Initially I did not think much of it, but as times passed by it became more or less sort of a regular pattern. I emphasize 'specifically', because previously there had never been real problems. Also letters on different subjects and more notable for instance on the subject of 'Climate Change', a subject probably deemed more 'neutral' , letter writers were frequently referring to sources of information, such as
websites and articles in scientific magazines.
When I discussed this with other contributors to the letter pages, it emerged that they often encountered similar problems when writing letters dealing with the ME conflict. From my blog one can see that I am very well versed on the subject of the ME conflict, at least much better than the average person and probably better than editors and politician as well. The editors of the The Press are well aware of my blog, because on several occasions attempts were made to have the blog mentioned in my letters. I have read numerous books on this immensely important protracted conflict, written by reputable and well known historians (Benny Morris, Martin Gilbert to mention only a few) as well as publications from several independent investigate journalists, correspondents and the like. I also - alas to no avail - had drawn attention to The Press books review editor on new book releases worth mentioning in the section of the weekly book reviews. Once I alerted one of The Press reporters to a talk that was to be given in Christchurch by Antony Loewenstein, the Australian Jewish author of the book entitled: 'My Israel Question'. Loewenstein is an outspoken critic of the Zionist lobbies also denoted as the 'Zionist Power Configuration', aggressively and actively
operating all over the 'western' world and their huge influence on the western corporate media. Although the reporter initially responded to my call and enquired about the venue, he never turned up. Did his boss prevented him from attending ? There was no response when I called him later. Once a contributor wrongly quoted one of the U.N. Resolutions. I responded by quoting the correct text, which could easily be verified by visiting Googles. My letter was promptly rejected. When I requested the editor to rectify the erroneously quoted text in the rubric 'Putting it right' the reply was that the rubric was 'not a forum for a squabble between two correspondents'. The Press maintains that it is devoted to accuracy and correctness.
From all this one cannot dismiss the impression that there is a tendency to suppress and misinform the general public, which becomes evident from editorials, as well as the very one sided, selective and scanty information the reading public is being offered. So my convictions are based not on just on a casually, fleeting, unfounded remark, but on a virtual consensus of views of many eminent historians, independent correspondents, journalists and further substantiated by personal observations and experiences when dealing with the corporate media and their self-appointed guardians, in this country such as the NZ Press Council. These convictions and experiences are shared by other letter writers to The Press, with whom I have regular contacts. The NZ Press Council established in 1972 according to its own information is funded by newspaper publishers. In the Council's Statement of Principles it maintains that (quote): "The Print media is jealous in guarding freedom of expression ('sic' my emphasize) not just for the publishers' sake, but, more importantly, in the public interest. In complaint resolutions by the Council freedom of expression and public interest will play dominant roles"
The decision of the Chief Editor of The Press to exclude me from contributing to the letter pages was a direct response to a letter to the Editor, in which I queried the Editor's editing rules. In my letter I simply expressed an opinion on those rules, which should never have been a reason to exclude a person from access to the letter pages. If I had been in breach of their editing rules, I would have accepted that as indeed I have done on several occasions before. However there is a huge difference between accepting editing rules, or criticising them, which should be everybody's civil right in a genuine democratic society. So when looking at the NZ Press Council's stated Principles it becomes abundantly clear that the Council is not adhering to its own guidelines. So the underlying reasons for excluding me from the letter pages may therefore well have been for very different reasons . The editors are well aware of my political views and convictions concerning the quite dubious role of the by now from various sources emerging well documented evidence that western corporate media are profoundly Zionist infested and 'editing' is often no more than a self imposed form of censorship. The editors are also aware of this webblog. In the absence of any credible explanation for denying me access to the letter pages this could well be the real underlying motives from barring me from their opinion pages. The editor once became very angry when I suggested to him that The Press, as part of the Australian Fairfax media group and subsequently part of the western mainstream corporate news media, is also likely to be Zionist infested. Of course this is merely an opinion, though a well founded opinion as elaborately explained in the foregoing. The question however is, should one be 'punished' for entertaining and expressing such an opinion by exclusion ? If the answer to that question is in the affirmative than we are dealing here with 'bully boy' tactics.
On 18 August 2010 I filed another complaint to the NZ Pres Council on the aforementioned grounds. The complaint was dismissed. SUMMARY:
From my personal experiences with the NZ media and in particular The Christchurch Press and the media funded NZ Press Council I have come to the conclusion that as far as my personal experiences with The Christchurch Press there exist a complete absence of any accountability, there is no transparency, no balance or fairness whatever. Selection and frequency of publication of letters is very personal and biased and judged on political opinions and views. There is complete contempt for the rights of inividuals wanting to participate in open debate. Editing in my experience has indeed become a form of disguised censorship. Editors are free to manipulate letters at will and weaken the message the author of the letter is trying to convey.
There are numerous ways in which he can do that while at the same time projecting a faked semblance of 'balance'. For a short while The Press published a list of rejected letters, which to some extent somewhat enhanced transparency, fairness and balance. This practice, unfortunately was very short lived and abandoned. I come to the final conclusion that the NZ Press Council, as we have seen before has a mere window dressing function.
George Antonius (historian)
"Many of you are uninformed about the conflict in the Middle East not because you don't want to know, but because you have been misinformed by the "Israeli-occupied" media......Just how many would die and how much global environment would be polluted and destroyed by the fallout in the event of an apocalyptic endgame in and over Palestine are matters for speculation. But that it could happen is reason enough for every man, women and child on planet earth to be aware that they have a stake in what is happening in the Middle East."
Alan Hart (Former ITN and BBC 'Panorama' correspondent author of 'Zionism The real Enemy of the Jews; Vol. One: The false Messiah."
Question: Could the editing of letters on certain politically sensitive subjects such as the Middle East conflict be a form of disguised censorship ? Here is my story, so judge for yourself.
Those readers who have followed my blog from the beginning know that the blog was 'born' as a result of a controversy that developed over time with one of our national, also our local news paper The Christchurch Press, for short 'The Press'. Over the years I have been a prolific contributor, not only to The Press, but already during the sixties and seventies while still living in the Dunedin area. I wrote numerous letters on the Vietnam War to the Otago Daily Times (ODT). I never had any problems getting my very often lengthy letters (in small print) published (with references) and I am still grateful to the editors making the necessary corrections in spelling and style. Sometimes they were edited or abridged a little, but never were references to sources of information removed, which is as one can see from Post 60 my concern with the editing rules of The Press. After an absence from New Zealand for several years when we lived in The Netherlands and in the Irish Republic, I returned to this country as a retiree and settled in Christchurch. After the outbreak of the Iraq war in 2003 I took up the pen again and resumed writing letters to the editor, this time to the The Press.. Again from 2003 to 2009 I had numerous letters published, on an average one a month, with little or no problems. In January 2009 I was even awarded for the 'best letter of the week'. Sure, some letters were rejected and somewhat edited, as happened with other the letters of other contributors as well. I never had any problem with that whatever. I think I am a reasonable and tolerant person and fully appreciate the problems an editor has to cope with when making his selections from the deluge of letters submitted.
But apparently times had changed. Problems were beginning to surface after I had filed a complaint with the NZ Press Council (adjudication 2094 November 2009. Complaint not upheld) and letters dealing with the Israeli/ Palestine conflict specifically. Very often essential passages and references to sources of information were carefully excised from letters. Initially I did not think much of it, but as times passed by it became more or less sort of a regular pattern. I emphasize 'specifically', because previously there had never been real problems. Also letters on different subjects and more notable for instance on the subject of 'Climate Change', a subject probably deemed more 'neutral' , letter writers were frequently referring to sources of information, such as
websites and articles in scientific magazines.
When I discussed this with other contributors to the letter pages, it emerged that they often encountered similar problems when writing letters dealing with the ME conflict. From my blog one can see that I am very well versed on the subject of the ME conflict, at least much better than the average person and probably better than editors and politician as well. The editors of the The Press are well aware of my blog, because on several occasions attempts were made to have the blog mentioned in my letters. I have read numerous books on this immensely important protracted conflict, written by reputable and well known historians (Benny Morris, Martin Gilbert to mention only a few) as well as publications from several independent investigate journalists, correspondents and the like. I also - alas to no avail - had drawn attention to The Press books review editor on new book releases worth mentioning in the section of the weekly book reviews. Once I alerted one of The Press reporters to a talk that was to be given in Christchurch by Antony Loewenstein, the Australian Jewish author of the book entitled: 'My Israel Question'. Loewenstein is an outspoken critic of the Zionist lobbies also denoted as the 'Zionist Power Configuration', aggressively and actively
operating all over the 'western' world and their huge influence on the western corporate media. Although the reporter initially responded to my call and enquired about the venue, he never turned up. Did his boss prevented him from attending ? There was no response when I called him later. Once a contributor wrongly quoted one of the U.N. Resolutions. I responded by quoting the correct text, which could easily be verified by visiting Googles. My letter was promptly rejected. When I requested the editor to rectify the erroneously quoted text in the rubric 'Putting it right' the reply was that the rubric was 'not a forum for a squabble between two correspondents'. The Press maintains that it is devoted to accuracy and correctness.
From all this one cannot dismiss the impression that there is a tendency to suppress and misinform the general public, which becomes evident from editorials, as well as the very one sided, selective and scanty information the reading public is being offered. So my convictions are based not on just on a casually, fleeting, unfounded remark, but on a virtual consensus of views of many eminent historians, independent correspondents, journalists and further substantiated by personal observations and experiences when dealing with the corporate media and their self-appointed guardians, in this country such as the NZ Press Council. These convictions and experiences are shared by other letter writers to The Press, with whom I have regular contacts. The NZ Press Council established in 1972 according to its own information is funded by newspaper publishers. In the Council's Statement of Principles it maintains that (quote): "The Print media is jealous in guarding freedom of expression ('sic' my emphasize) not just for the publishers' sake, but, more importantly, in the public interest. In complaint resolutions by the Council freedom of expression and public interest will play dominant roles"
The decision of the Chief Editor of The Press to exclude me from contributing to the letter pages was a direct response to a letter to the Editor, in which I queried the Editor's editing rules. In my letter I simply expressed an opinion on those rules, which should never have been a reason to exclude a person from access to the letter pages. If I had been in breach of their editing rules, I would have accepted that as indeed I have done on several occasions before. However there is a huge difference between accepting editing rules, or criticising them, which should be everybody's civil right in a genuine democratic society. So when looking at the NZ Press Council's stated Principles it becomes abundantly clear that the Council is not adhering to its own guidelines. So the underlying reasons for excluding me from the letter pages may therefore well have been for very different reasons . The editors are well aware of my political views and convictions concerning the quite dubious role of the by now from various sources emerging well documented evidence that western corporate media are profoundly Zionist infested and 'editing' is often no more than a self imposed form of censorship. The editors are also aware of this webblog. In the absence of any credible explanation for denying me access to the letter pages this could well be the real underlying motives from barring me from their opinion pages. The editor once became very angry when I suggested to him that The Press, as part of the Australian Fairfax media group and subsequently part of the western mainstream corporate news media, is also likely to be Zionist infested. Of course this is merely an opinion, though a well founded opinion as elaborately explained in the foregoing. The question however is, should one be 'punished' for entertaining and expressing such an opinion by exclusion ? If the answer to that question is in the affirmative than we are dealing here with 'bully boy' tactics.
On 18 August 2010 I filed another complaint to the NZ Pres Council on the aforementioned grounds. The complaint was dismissed. SUMMARY:
From my personal experiences with the NZ media and in particular The Christchurch Press and the media funded NZ Press Council I have come to the conclusion that as far as my personal experiences with The Christchurch Press there exist a complete absence of any accountability, there is no transparency, no balance or fairness whatever. Selection and frequency of publication of letters is very personal and biased and judged on political opinions and views. There is complete contempt for the rights of inividuals wanting to participate in open debate. Editing in my experience has indeed become a form of disguised censorship. Editors are free to manipulate letters at will and weaken the message the author of the letter is trying to convey.
There are numerous ways in which he can do that while at the same time projecting a faked semblance of 'balance'. For a short while The Press published a list of rejected letters, which to some extent somewhat enhanced transparency, fairness and balance. This practice, unfortunately was very short lived and abandoned. I come to the final conclusion that the NZ Press Council, as we have seen before has a mere window dressing function.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict
80.The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict
Highly recommended and essential reading for anyone who wants to have a thorough understanding of the historical background of the present day Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The web is from 'Jews for Justice in the Middle East'.
Highly recommended and essential reading for anyone who wants to have a thorough understanding of the historical background of the present day Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The web is from 'Jews for Justice in the Middle East'.
Friday, August 27, 2010
79. EXCERPTS FROM THE U.N. GOLDSTONE REPORT
The following excerpts are just a small selection from 130 paragraphs of what is commonly known as the 'Goldstone report'. I suggest readers to make themselves familiar with the entire text, which can be found in James Petras book entitled: "Warcrimes in Gaza and the Zionist Fifth Column in America".
The President of the Human Rights Council established the United Nations Fact Finding Mission in April 2009 and appointed Justice Richard Goldstone to head the Mission. Goldstone was a former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Three other appointed members were Prof. Christine Chinkin, Prof. of International Law of the London School of Economics and Political Science; Ms Hina Jilani, Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, also a member of the International Commission of Inquiry on Dafur ; and Colonel Desmond Travers, a former Officer in Ireland's Defence Force and member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for International Criminal Investigations.
The Mission repeatedly sought to obtain the cooperation of the Government of Israel. After numerous attempts had failed, the Mission sought and obtained the assistance of the Government of Egypt to enable it to enter the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing. (Blogger: This refusal in itself amounts already to an admission of guilt.)
The UN General Assembly endorsed the thorough documentation of Israel's war crimes and state terrorism revealed in the Goldstone Report with 114 votes and 18 against. The 18 votes against were - as could be expected - Israel and the United States, several East European client states and some insignificant island dependencies. United Nation endorsement represents over 80% of the world's population............
#27 The blockade comprises measures such as the restrictions on goods that can be imported into the Gaza and the closure of border crossings for people, goods and services, sometimes for days, including cuts on the provision of fuel and electricity. Gaza's economy is further severely affected by the reduction of the fishing zone open to the Palestinian fishermen and the establishment of a "buffer zone" along the border between Gaza and Israel which reduces the land available for agriculture and industrial activity. In addition to creating an emergency situation, the blockade significantly weakened the capacities of the population and of health, water and other public sectors to react to the emergency created by the military operations................
#28 The Mission holds the view that Israel continues to be duty-bound under the Fourth Geneva Convention and to the full extent of the means available to it to ensure the supply of foodstuff, medical and hospital items and others to meet the humanitarian needs of the population of the Gaza Strip qualification...................
#32 Israeli armed forces launched numerous attacks against buildings and persons of the Gaza authorities............On the information available to it, the Mission finds that the attacks on these buildings constituted deliberate attacks on civilian objects in violation of the rule of customary international humanitarian law whereby attacks must be strictly limited to military objectives. These facts further indicate the of the grave breach of extensive destruction of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.....................
#38. The Mission also examined the precautions taken by Israeli forces in the context of three specific attacks they launched. On the 15 January2009, the UNRWA field office compound in Gaza City came under shelling with high explosive and white phosphorous munitions. The Mission notes that the attack was extremely dangerous, as the compound offered shelter to between 600 and 700 civilians and contained a huge fuel depot. The Israeli forces continued the attack over several hours in spite of having been fully alerted to the risks they created. The Mission concludes that Israeli armed forces violated the customary international law requirement to take all feasible precautions in the choice of means and method of attack with a view to avoiding and in any event minimizing incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects....................
#39. The mission also finds that, on the same day, the Israeli forces directly and intentionally attacked the Al Quds Hospital in Gaza City and the adjacent ambulance depot with white phosphorus shells. The attack caused fires which took a whole day to extinguish and caused panic among the sick and wounded who had to be evacuated. The mission finds that no warning was given at any point of an imminent strike. On the basis of its investigation, the Mission rejects the allegation that fire was directed at Israeli fores from the Hospital......................
#42. In drawing legal conclusions on the attack against al-Fakhura junction, the Mission recognizes that for all armies proportionality
decisions, weighing the military advantages to be gained against the risk of killing civilians, will present very genuine dilemmas in certain cases. The Mission does not consider this to be such a case. The firing of at least four mortar shells to attempt to kill a small number of specified individuals in a setting where large numbers of civilians were going about their daily business and 1,368 people were sheltering nearby cannot meet the test of what a reasonable commander would have determined to be an acceptable loss of civilian life for the military advantage sought. The Mission considers thus the attack to have been indiscriminate in violation of international law, and to have violated the right to life of the Palestinian civilians killed in these incidents.......................
#43 The Mission investigated eleven incidents in which Israeli forces launched direct attacks against civilians with lethal outcome (Chapter XI) The cases examined in this part of the report are, with one exception, all cases in which he facts indicate no justifiable military objective pursued by the attack. The first two incidents are attacks against houses in the Samouni neighborhood south of Gaza City, including the shelling of a house in which Palestinian civilians had been forced to assemble by the Israeli forces. The following group of seven incidents concern the shooting of civilians while they were trying to leave their homes to walk to a safer place, waving white flags and in, in some of the cases, following an injunction from the Israeli forces to do so. The facts gathered by the Mission indicate that all the attacks occurred under circumstances in which the Israeli forces were in control of the area and had previously entered into contact with or at least observed the persons they subsequently attacked, so that they must have been aware of their civilian status. In the majority of these incidents, the consequences of the Israeli attacks against civilians were aggravated by their subsequent refusal to allow the evacuation of the wounded or permit access to ambulances...........
#44 These incidents indicate that the instructions given to the Israeli forces moving into Gaza provided for a low threshold for the use of lethal fire against the civilian population. The Mission found strong corroboration of this trend emerging from its fact-finding in the testimonies of Israeli soldiers collected in two publications it reviewed.........
#45 The Mission further examined an incident in which a mosque was targeted with a missile during the early evening prayer, resulting in the death of fifteen, and attack with flechette munition on a crowd of family and neighbours at a condolence tent, killing five. The Mission finds that both attacks constitute intentional attacks against civilian population and civilian objects...................
#50 Already at the beginning of the military operations, the Al Bader flour mill was the only flour mill in the Gaza Strip still operating. The flour ill was hit by a series of air strikes on 9 January 2009 after several false warnings had been issued on the previous days. The Mission finds that its destruction had no military justification.........From the facts it ascertained, the Mission finds there has been a violation of the grave breaches provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Unlawful and wanton destruction which is not justified by military necessity amounts to a war crime. The Mission also finds hat the destruction of the mill was carried out for the purposes of customary international law and may constitute a war crime. The strike on the flour mill further constitutes a violation of human rights provisions regarding the right to adequate food and means of subsistence.................
#55. The Mission investigated four incidents in which Israeli forces coerced Palestinian civilian men at gun point to take part in house searches during the military operations(Chapter XIV). The Palestinian men were blindfolded and handcuffed as they were forced to enter houses ahead of the Israeli soldiers..........Published testimonies of Israeli soldiers who took part in the military operations confirm the continued use of this practice....................
#63. In the framing of Israeli military objectives with regard to the Gaza operation, the concept of Hamas 'supporting infrastructure' is particularly worrying as it appears to transform civilians and civilian objects into legitimate targets. Statements by Israeli political and military leaders prior to and during the military operations in Gaza indicate that the military conception of what was necessary in a war with Hamas view disproportionate destruction and creating the maximum disruption in the lives of many people as a legitimate means to achieve not only military but also political goals.....................
#67. As a result of the razing of farmland and the destruction of greenhouses, food insecurity is expected to further worsen in spite of the increased quantities of food items allowed into Gaza since the beginning of the military operations. Dependence on food assistance increases. Levels of stunting and thinness in children and of anaemia prevalence in children and pregnant women were worrying already before the military operations. ......... In the water and sanitation sector, the destruction of the infrastructure (such as the destruction of the Namar wells and the attack against the water treatment plant described in Chapter XII), aggravated the preexistent situation..........
#68. The number of persons suffering from mental health problems is also bound to increase. The Mission investigated a number of incidents in which adults and children witnessed the killing of their loved ones. Doctors at Gaza Community Mental Health Programme gave information to the Mission on psychosomatic disorders, on a widespread state of alienation in the population, and on "numbness" as a result of severe loss. They told the Mission that these conditions were likely to in turn increase the readiness to embrace violence and extremism. (suicide bombers ?) They also told the Mission that 20 percent of children in the Gaza strip suffer Post Traumatic Stress Disorders..................
#74. The condition of life in Gaza, resulting from deliberate actions of the Israeli forces and declared policies of the Government of Israel - as they were presented by its authorized and legitimate representatives - with regards to the Gaza Strip before, during and after the military operations, cumulatively indicate the intention to inflict collective punishment on the people of the Gaza Strip in violation of international humanitarian law.................
#75. The Mission considered whether the series of acts that deprive Palestinians in the Gaza Strip of their means of sustenance, employment, housing and water, that deny their freedom of movement and their right to leave and enter their own country, that limit their access a court of law and an effective remedy, could amount to persecution, a crime against humanity. From the facts available to it, the Mission is of the view that some of the actions of the Government of Israel might justify a competent court finding that crimes against humanity have been committed.
#75. The Mission considered whether the series of acts that deprive Palestinians in the Gaza Strip of their means of sustenance, employment, housing and water, that deny their freedom of movement and their right to leave and enter their own country, that limit their access a court of law and an effective remedy, could amount to persecution, a crime against humanity. From the facts available to it, the Mission is of the view that some of the actions of the Government of Israel might justify a competent court finding that crimes against humanity have been committed.
(to be continued)
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
ZIONISM v. ANTI-SEMITISM
78. Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are two different concepts. Zionism is an ideology based on the ethnic cleansing and the domination of an undemocratic one religion only, apartheid's state.It is Zionism that obstructs the peaceful solution to the Middle East conflict and therefore needs to be removed from the pages of history to make place for a genuinely democratic unitary sate, with equal rights for both the original, indigenous in 1948 expelled inhabitants living in huge refugee camps all over the M.E. and the non-indigenous Jewish immigrants from abroad, regardless of race, gender and creed. Only that will bring an end to more than sixty years of war, oppression, discrimination and injustice to the Palestinian people and will transform Israel into a genuine democratic state. Even many Jewish people living to-day in liberal western democratic societies have voiced their disgust about the discrimination and exclusions experienced by Palestino-Israelis at the hands of the Zionist regime over the last sixty years or so. Because of these profoundly undemocratic laws and policies Israel could never have become part of the European Union or one of America's fifty states.
Link to Post 73
Link to Post 73
Friday, August 13, 2010
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